A Sazerac Spin With Hops To The Bitter End

A Sazerac Spin With Hops To The Bitter End

The Hell Yeah cocktail is not for the weak

Emma Emerson is an architect by day, and edits food blog Gastronomista by night. She shares her delicious and often booze-filled findings with Food Republic.

Fall is wonderful, despite cornucopias filled with fake orange hued leaves and heirloom gourds — and perhaps the worst offender, autumnal-flavored foods. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of pumpkin pie, but only on Thanksgiving, or if there’s any left over, the next day. For breakfast. Cold. Other autumnal foods are often overly artificial tasting and saccharine-sweet — pumpkin beer perhaps being the worst offender (but if you have to have them, drink these).

Despite my general malaise towards most seasonal foods, I have found the ultimate autumnal cocktail: The Hell Yeah. It was created by bartender Steve Wood, who harks from the experimental cocktail bar at John J. Jeffries in Lancaster, PA. Inspired by the hops harvested from his garden, a bitey IPA and a mighty bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon. This cocktail is a rift on the New Orleans classic cocktail, the Sazerac, with a hit of garden freshness and the bitter kick of a hoppy pint.

Hops are easy enough to get — you can buy them by the pound online. We recommend Chinook Leafed Hops or any other hop used to make IPA. Or, if you happen to already grow hops, they should be ready to harvest right about…now.

A Sazerac Spin With Hops To The Bitter End

Prep Time:
10 minutes plus steeping time

Cook Time:
15 minutes

Level of Difficulty:
Easy

Serving Size:
1 cocktail

Ingredients

For the cocktail

2
ounces
Buffalo Trace Bourbon

1/4
ounce
Herbsaint

1/2
ounce
hop-infused honey syrup

1/2
ounce
grapefruit juice

2
dashes
Fee Brothers Grapefruit bitters

2
dashes
Peychaud's Bitters

3
hop cones

lemon peel, to garnish

For the hop-infused honey syrup

24
hop cones

equal parts
water and honey

Directions

For the cocktail:

Wash the glass with Herbsaint, discard excess.

In a shaker or mixing glass, muddle 2 hop cones with the grapefruit bitters, Peychaud’s bitters and Hop-Infused Honey.